November 3, 2010

Prop 19 failed. In yesterday's Bloggingheads — the "Non-Obsolete Edition" — Matt Welch and I talked about the effort to legalize the so-called "recreational" use of marijuana, which is far less popular than the "medical" use. You can watch the whole segment here, but — I know these Bloggingheads things are long — I don't want you to miss the part where I connect the favoring of medical legalization to left-wing values that I despise. It's only 80 seconds:

Note that the "medicinal" use of alcohol — "self-medicating" — is considered especially bad. The good alcohol use is for personal pleasure — one might say the pursuit of happiness — and most certainly not out of a physical need. Isn't it odd that it's the other way around for marijuana?

***

If you watch the whole segment — 16+ minutes long, sorry — there's a lot of discussion of the way the federalism problem would work out if the state stopped criminalizing marijuana. It's a misnomer to say that would "legalize" marijuana, because the federal crimes still apply. It would still be a crime to possess, grow, or distribute marijuana. The federal government can't force state officials to carry out the enforcement of the federal law. (It can lure them into that role with conditions on spending, but it can't commandeer the state law enforcement personnel. That's Printz.)

As Matt notes, Eric Holder announced a few weeks ago, that if Prop 19 passed, federal drug agents would "vigorously enforce" the federal law in California. California's a huge state, and that would be damned hard to do. I suggest that Holder may have only said that to try to influence California voters to reject Prop 19, and Matt seems certain that was the reason. And that seemed to work.

It would have been quite chaotic if Prop 19 had gone the other way. In the 16+ minute clip, you can see that Matt loves the idea of the chaos that would destabilize everything with, perhaps, the ultimate result that the federal government would give up on its marijuana crimes. I, on the other side, resist the chaos. I don't think it would work well to have something appear to be legal and at the same time be a very real federal crime. Much as I like decentralized law and the benefits of federalism, where there is valid federal law, it supersedes state and local law. That is the constitutional structure.

Its still unclear if "medical marijuana" will once again fail in AZ, but to your point Professor

The term "medical marijuana" drives me CRAZY.1)No other medicine is delivered via smoke inhalation, a known harm to the lungs2) the active ingredient is available as a prescription medicine.3) Euphoria is not a "therapeutic effect"

though I have grave misgivings regarding legalizing marijuana, if we're going to do it please, please, please lets not call it MEDICINE

There were a lot of problems with this law, in particular, as well as the problem of drawing the Feds' ire to our state.

Patterico noticed this wording, which was problematic:No person shall be punished, fined, discriminated against, or be denied any right or privilege for lawfully engaging in any conduct permitted by this act or authorized pursuant to Section 11301. Provided, however, that the existing right of an employer to address consumption that actually impairs job performance by an employee shall not be affected.

It was to be written into the law that employers could not prohibit employees from coming to work high, unless it could be proven that job performance was impaired. That's a tough bar, especially in California.

I think CA would be willing to make pot legal- it really almost is now. Possession is treated basically like a parking ticket.

We have a basic problem right now, and that is that we just cannot afford to lock people up for drug usage. The prison industry is a multi-billion dollar industry that just keeps growing, even in the midst of a major recession.

And, of course, more cops are required to enforce those laws, and they require expensive equipment so that they can safely (to them) conduct no-knock raids in the middle of the night to prevent pot users from flushing their stash down the drain when a warrant is served.

Then, there is the problem that all these prison guards and cops are government employees, so have government pensions, which are not even close to being fully funded, but still allow the participants to retire at sometimes quite obnoxious incomes for life, often at a fairly young age.

On top of that, a large percentage of the Black male population, esp. of the underclass, are now either in prison or have gone to prison. Not a good thing for the community.

All for a drug that was used freely throughout the world since antiquity up until William Randolph Hearst managed to gin up a scare to get an advantage over his competitors who were still printing their papers on hemp.

It is my contention that we would be far better off, as a country, from a financial, civil liberties, and public policy point of view, if we were to kill the industry built up in response to this perceived problem.

And, yes, California is at the center of this, with the biggest prison population, marijuana crops, and, by far, debt, a good part of which is a result of trying to police this.

p.s. I have no interest in the stuff personally. I am a year or two older than Ann, and went to college at a time when it was ubiquitous.

Well even then, if Althouse is correct it would end up in some "twilight zone " between state and federal law.

Chaos-which has Matt mesmerized.

Chaos theory is a field of study in mathematics, physics, economics, and philosophy studying the behavior of dynamical systems that are highly sensitive to initial conditions. This sensitivity is popularly referred to as the butterfly effect. Small differences in initial conditions (such as those due to rounding errors in numerical computation) yield widely diverging outcomes for chaotic systems, rendering long-term prediction impossible in general.[1] This happens even though these systems are deterministic, meaning that their future behavior is fully determined by their initial conditions, with no random elements involved.[2] In other words, the deterministic nature of these systems does not make them predictable

The thing that makes me less sympathetic to pot is that it has the mental effect of making people paranoid-and that effect exists for some time after they stop smoking.

The direct relationship that people like to set up-that it is the "equal" of liquor seems like a glaring oversimplification.

"As Matt notes, Eric Holder announced a few weeks ago, that if Prop 19 passed, federal drug agents would 'vigorously enforce' the federal law in California. California's a huge state, and that would be damned hard to do."

Unless they were to expand their federal law enforcement entities and add more agents and/or further militarized the ones already in place. It's all good for the accretion of ever greater power to the gub'mint.

We need to scrap drug prohibition altogether...aside from the increasing authoritarianism that prohibition policies breed, and aside from the incentive it provides to law enforcement agencies to confiscate without due process cash and personal property from citizens due to civil forfeiture laws, (many police agencies add anticipated forfeiture revenues into their annual budgets), enforcement of drug laws and imprisonment of non-violent drug offenders is a money pit of mind-blowing scale, to no productive effect other than the aforementioned growth of gub'mint power.

UPDATE: I should add that, contrary to what you might hear, there is no problem with jails or prisons in California being clogged with people who possess pot. You can’t go to jail in California for having under an ounce of pot; the maximum penalty is a $100 fine, and it’s nothing but an infraction. Defendants go to jail or prison only for dealing.

And with pot, unlike most other drugs, there are no extra penalties for dealing in quantity. This means that in the California state system, you can deal huge quantities (tons) and still get the minimum time available for any low-level felony: 3 years in prison maximum (not counting enhancements for priors, which can always increase any prison sentence). Of that three years, defendants serve only half. And most pot dealers are sentenced to the low term of 16 months, of which they serve only half: eight months.

So, there is no huge incarceration problem that needs to be fixed by screwing up employment law further.

The argument that Prop 19 would allow school bus drivers to toke up to the moment they turned the key in the ignition was telling. Only after they had one accident while stoned could an employer forbid them to.

46% voted to legalize marijuana. California is not a particularly socially liberal state anymore. It is an authoritarian liberal state. I don't think the results in California are out of the line with the rest of the country. If you had a national Prop 19, it would get 40 or more percent of the vote.

What would it have gotten twenty year ago? Five percent? The results show a huge shift in attitudes towards drug legalization. Ending prohibition, at least with regards to marijuana is no longer a fringe position. It is not yet a majority position. But it is certainly a mainstream position.

We need to scrap drug prohibition altogether...aside from the increasing authoritarianism that prohibition policies breed, and aside from the incentive it provides to law enforcement agencies to confiscate without due process cash and personal property from citizens due to civil forfeiture laws, (many police agencies add anticipated forfeiture revenues into their annual budgets), enforcement of drug laws and imprisonment of non-violent drug offenders is a money pit of mind-blowing scale, to no productive effect other than the aforementioned growth of gub'mint power.

"The thing that makes me less sympathetic to pot is that it has the mental effect of making people paranoid-and that effect exists for some time after they stop smoking.

The direct relationship that people like to set up-that it is the "equal" of liquor seems like a glaring oversimplification."

You are either trolling or have had absolutely no experience with either drug. At least a third of people out there become violent and belligerent when drunk. Everyone's judgment and inhibitions are reduced when drunk. And for some people that means violence. There is a reason why they shut off beer sales after the seventh inning of baseball games. It is because of the fights and fan abuse that breaks out if too many people get too drunk.

Marijuana in contrast is never associated with violence. If makes some people feel paranoid but they don't lose their inhibitions to act on that paranoia the way they do when they are drunk. People who are stoned are just completely different, quieter and more docile than drunk people.

Although I watched my brother become paranoid as hell, and a good friend of mine admitted to being scared shitless of the effect -especially of the aspect that after quitting marijuana the effect perpetuated.

The fact that the two people I know well ended up paranoid-makes me less sympathetic.

I also think it's denied by people who want to reduce it all to the simple rubric-

I would say pot is much less dangerous than booze. Look at it this way. Daily drinkers like Richard Burton and George Best never saw 65. In contrast daily pot smokers like Willie Nelson, Louis Armstrong and Bing Crosby lived to ripe old ages and died of unrelated cause (or in Willie's case are going strong to this day)

I drink. But I also understand the stuff really is poison. You can die from it. If you drink consistently long enough, you will die. Pot is nothing like that.

And as far as losing in California. Prop 19 got about the same percentage of the vote as Gay marriage got (46 vs 47 percent). So pro legalization is every bit as mainstream a position as pro gay marriage.

Beyond that, "scoreboard" is not an argument. And your objection to ending prohibition seems based on superstition as much as anything.

There is not one piece of scientific evidence or clinical study that shows that to be true. Sorry but your brother was probably doing other drugs he never told you about or has other mental problems you are not mentioning or won't accept.

So what? Gay marriage lost there to. Is that not a legitimate position? And is it your position that any position that doesn't command the majority is automatically wrong? Is that how we judge policies and arguments now? And even if we did, it won 46% of the vote. That would have been unthinkable even a decade ago. I would say the trend is clearly for legalization.

I've got to get going but I will read what you've posted. I'll admit to being highly prejudicial after watching my own brother struggle for years.

The paranoia affected him for years-I have a huge prejudice towards pot-and I find it pretty damn ironic that the only other admitted pot head I know well, experienced the same damn problem. I don't know what the odds should be and I get that two don't make a trend-but it still concerns me greatly.

Ann, don't know if you heard about this since it affects UW's Big Ten brother UI. We had our own little mini-Prop 19 here (just south of me, actually, so I have no dog in the fight). Iowa City finally got sick of dealing with drunk teenagers and passed a 21-only ordanance (i.e. establishments that primarily serve alcohol may only admit patrons over the legal drinking age). A significant effort was mounted to repeal the ordanance but it failed pretty handily (52% in favor), even with the college-age population being a pretty significant chunk of Iowa City's population.

c3 wrote:The term "medical marijuana" drives me CRAZY.1)No other medicine is delivered via smoke inhalation, a known harm to the lungs2) the active ingredient is available as a prescription medicine.3) Euphoria is not a "therapeutic effect"

though I have grave misgivings regarding legalizing marijuana, if we're going to do it please, please, please lets not call it MEDICINE

I have the exact same problem with "medical" marijuana. Breathing smoke into your lungs is not healthy for anyone and some of the same chemicals in cigs that cause cancer are also in marijuana. No decent doctor is going to say that breathing in smoke is good for you (and in teh case of marijuana you breathe it in and then hold it in your lungs), so would probably find an alternative treatment that didnt have that SIGNIFCANT drawback. That being said, they can now extract the various components from pot. If they can do that they can make drugs from said components that dont' require you to smoke them. Maybe, if there is some medicinal benefit, they could then use said ingredients to treat people without the downside of making them breathe in cancer causing smoke.

THough I will say this. Even though I've said the state has every right to continue to make pot illegal, of all the drugs currently illegal pot is probably one of the few that could theoretically be legalized because unlike say meth or heroin the effects are not as severe. So while I'm not a supporter of pot being legal (i think they could simply make it less criminal to be caught with small amounts on your person) pot is the least evil of the illegal drugs.

I have the exact same problem with "medical" marijuana. Breathing smoke into your lungs is not healthy for anyone and some of the same chemicals in cigs that cause cancer are also in marijuana. No decent doctor is going to say that breathing in smoke is good for you (and in teh case of marijuana you breathe it in and then hold it in your lungs), so would probably find an alternative treatment that didnt have that "

That is supremely dopey. Putting opiates into your body is really harmful. But you better hope your doctor is willing to proscribe them to you the next time you have surgery. Chemotherapy is flat out poison. But again you better hope your doctor proscribes such stuff if you ever have cancer.

Lots of medicines have terrible side effects. That is why they are called side effects. That doesn't mean that the positive effects don't out weigh the side effects. I am not a doctor. But there are doctors and patients who will tell you that marijuana does quite well to do things like reduce the side effects of chemotherapy and as pain relief. I think the state ought to stop making the judgment for them and their patients.

And how is pot more evil that alcohol? Have you ever had to deal with an alcoholic? Seen the kind of pain that alcohol abuse causes? It is nasty and horrible. And just as bad or worse than any horror story you can dream up about pot. Should we ban that evil to? If not, why not?

Any drug can be abused. And anyone can be a screw up degenerate even without the help of drugs. I am fully aware of the harm caused by drug abuse. I am just equally aware of the harm caused by prohibition. I do not use drugs myself. And wouldn't if they were legal. But, I am tired of paying taxes for the police to try and save people from themselves by throwing them in jail. It is destroying our freedoms and way of life. I have no fear of a pot head coming to my house and robbing me. And if he does, I have a large collection of firearms to deal with him. But if the police show up at my house in a mistaken no knock raid, like they recently did to the mayor of a town nearby, I have a real problem. Prohibition is much worse than what it is trying to cure.

Prop. 19 is an initiative statute, not a constitutional amendment. Statutes have to be self-contained -- constitutional amendments, like the 18th amendment to the US Constitution, don't have to spell out all the details: "Section 2. The Congress and the several States shall have concurrent power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation."

Further, unlike for marijuana, there was a comprehensive scheme of alcohol regulation already in place from pre-18th Amendment times.

And prohibition is doing such a great job keeping people from using drugs. Anyone who wants to use drugs in this country already is. All we are doing is spending billions of dollars we don't have, forgoing billions of dollars in taxes, and creating drug mafias that are destroying our cities and pretty much all of Latin America. But you still think continuing our same approach is a good idea.

Why don't you grow the fuck up and realize that life is about choices. Sorry, but you are not getting a pony here. We are never having a "drug free society". So we better make the best of the reality we face. That is called being an adult rather than a superstition crazed moron.

The argument I just don't answer is when I hear people say "I wouldn't want to take up the slack if my colleague is a stoner and shows up to work stoned" - and its a fair sentiment, until you ask yourself why that argument shouldn't apply to alcohol either?

I don't do alcohol or marijuana at all. However, when I was younger, I dabbled in both, and from my personal experience, alcohol always seemed to affect me more strongly. Yes, I'm a lightweight.

How do businesses handle it when people show up drunk? They fire them! Why shouldn't that apply to marijuana as well? It is just as easy to tell when someone is stoned.

"How do businesses handle it when people show up drunk? They fire them! Why shouldn't that apply to marijuana as well? It is just as easy to tell when someone is stoned."

What you mean people handle their own affairs and be responsible for their own actions? That is crazy talk. As FLS tells us, everything must be subject to comprehensive state regulation. People are competent to be out making their own decisions or living their lives unsupervised by the state

And the paranoia thing is real - but it doesn't happen to everyone. My wife says she used to get VERY paranoid with marijuana, so she just didn't use it. I, on the other hand, never had paranoia at all.

On the flip side, Alcohol would affect her in a positive way, she'd get all giggly. And it would affect me in a negative way - I'd get all pensive and broody and melancholy - and end up writing poems which turned out to be utter garbage when I re-read them in the morning.

So, basically, every drug affects everyone differently. I should have the freedom to pick my poison - as long as there are easy to implement barriers which prevent people from driving or operating machinery under influence.

"How do businesses handle it when people show up drunk? They fire them! Why shouldn't that apply to marijuana as well? It is just as easy to tell when someone is stoned."

Prop 19 would have prohibited firing people for showing up stoned, that's why. The employer would have had to make the case that being stoned actually impaired the worker's job performance. Guess who would win the wrongful discharge case, in California.

(c) No person shall be punished, fined, discriminated against, or be denied any right or privilege for lawfully engaging in any conduct permitted by this act or authorized pursuant to Section 11301. Provided, however, that the existing right of an employer to address consumption that actually impairs job performance by an employee shall not be affected.

"The bill failed to address a number of legitimate concerns, mostly related to worker safety and traffic safety."

Why would it need to? The bill would only legalize possession of marijuana, not legalize the right to be stoned anywhere, anytime. Similarly, I can buy liquor at any corner store in San Francisco, but that doesn't mean I have the right get hosed at work or behind the wheel.

Prop 19 would have prohibited firing people for showing up stoned, that's why. The employer would have had to make the case that being stoned actually impaired the worker's job performance. Guess who would win the wrongful discharge case, in California.

WTF, the law specifically says that it does not change the current rights of employers. In other words, nothing would change from the status quo. If your workplace prevents you from showing up intoxicated, that wouldn't have changed under Prop 19.

I've always been suspicious of the attempt to compare alcohol and marijuana. People often drink alcohol for the flavor or in social settings, without any intention of being affected by the alcohol. Having a beer with your pizza is done because the former perfectly complements the latter. I've never heard of a social bong hit.

People often drink alcohol for the flavor or in social settings, without any intention of being affected by the alcohol. Having a beer with your pizza is done because the former perfectly complements the latter.

Right. And that explains the incredible popularity of non-alcoholic beer.

I'm with madawaskan. One of the most pernicious memes is that pot is harmless. My ex-boyfriend was fine using pot once in while, albeit completely unmotivated the next day. But when he got a medical marijuana scrip and started using everyday, he became paroniod and the complete opposite of mellow. My argument that if I drank as much as he toked, I would be considered an alcoholic was always met with "pot is harmless, everyone knows it".

So what is the legally defensible test (from a business owner's pov)for a worker being high at work? Doesn't a drug test would show positive for THC for something like4 weeks after indulging? Or is there an immediate definitive test, like there is for alcohol?

Another problem no one has mentioned WRT Prop 19 is the number of medical marijuana stores that have popped up in San Fernando Valley. There is pretty much 1 every mile along Ventura Blvd, and more open up every day. My guess is that people living or working near these establishments probably voted 'no' as well.

John wrote:All we are doing is spending billions of dollars we don't have, forgoing billions of dollars in taxes, and creating drug mafias that are destroying our cities and pretty much all of Latin America. But you still think continuing our same approach is a good idea.

Why don't you grow the fuck up and realize that life is about choices. Sorry, but you are not getting a pony here. We are never having a "drug free society". So we better make the best of the reality we face. That is called being an adult rather than a superstition crazed moron.

Since drug users know that they are enriching drug cartels that murder people but use the drugs anyway, doesn't it suggest that they aren't too bothered by drug cartels that murder people so long as they get their drug of choice? You want to talk about choices, drug users promote that criminal lifestyle and dont' particularly care. No?

It's not about pot, or medicine, or comparisons to alcohol. It's about liberty. If the state should be allowed to break in your door, shoot your dog, terrorize your family, take you to jail, and steal your property over possession of any amount of an unadulterated plant, then what can't they do? I would think eating trans fats should be equally or more a violation in such a society.

No other argument but the gross violation of liberty should be needed.

"Euphoria is not a "therapeutic effect" Speak for yourself. I would say it's the most commonly requested and delivered in medicine.

I was in line to vote yesterday when two stoners came in just to vote on Prop 19. They were clearly high, in the wrong location, and obviously had never voted before. Euphoria is the mother of civic responsibility.

As an example I'll refer to the movie Blow about George Jung one of the biggest coke dealers in the 80's who was in league with Pablo Escobar when he was the biggest coke dealer around. WHen George first meets up with Pablo he notices a guy who is standing next to the wall, and while Pablo is walking over to greet him the guy by the wall is executed. And then George proceeds to get into business with this guy. Drugs are just a matter of personal choice and responsibility, yet anyone who took coke in the 80s knew that people like Escobar were lining people against walls and shooting them, or cutting their throats and giving them cuban kneck ties, or blowing up planes or assassinating politicians and news men. And they didn't care. It's drug users who made Escobar into the billionaire that he was. Having them say that they want to deal with the cartels caused by illegal drugs is a crock of shit since even when the cartels were at their richest and most ruthless they were essentially paying them for their drugs. An example of drugs as a non victimless crime. Take someone who doesn't do crack living in a neighborhood where crack becomes epidemic and then have him walk down the street in fear for his life because of all the drug dealers and addicts running around. That person did not choose to get high, yet his/her neighborhood is overrun becuase of other peoples personal choices.

bago20 wrote:It's not about pot, or medicine, or comparisons to alcohol. It's about liberty. If the state should be allowed to break in your door, shoot your dog, terrorize your family, take you to jail, and steal your property over possession of any amount of an unadulterated plant, then what can't they do? I would think eating trans fats should be equally or more a violation in such a society.

Should society have a right to break in your door shoot your dog, terrorize your family take you to jail and steal your property over any illegal thing? Should anything illegal become legal? If you have other illegal things and the cops break in, are you not going to be terrorized, might your dog not get shot, your family terrorized?Suppose I stole your pot, and you told the cops and the cops broke in and my family was terrorized. Should society then ban stealing because I was caught with an illegal thing? Or does the fact that it was your personal property mean that when the cops bust in to retrieve it that I won't be scared or denied liberty when they bust me?

If we have a problem with blood diamonds we hold those who buy blood diamonds accountable because we know that despite beauty of such diamonds there is a huge human cost to get those diamonds to your hands. I certainly wouldn't buy blood diamonds, but others would. Can't we say that for those people the fact that a diamond is a blood diamond means they don't particularly care where the diamond came from since they'll buy it anyway? Is buying that blood diamond in fact a victimless crime? It's just a stone after all.

"It was to be written into the law that employers could not prohibit employees from coming to work high, unless it could be proven that job performance was impaired. That's a tough bar, especially in California."

That is exactly correct and the main reason I voted against Prop 19. Chuck Devore and John Campbell (two local conservatives) made the same argument. I look at the inclusion of the clause you quote as typical liberal over-reach. If a conservative had written this proposition, it could have passed.

"Nothing in the bill prohibits you from being stoned anywhere, anytime, as long as you don't actually get stoned in public."

If you are not otherwise committing a crime like driving, what difference does that make? You are a real authoritarian asshole FLS.

"The law specifically says that employers retain one specific right. Almost everything will change from the status quo."

You are both right. The law was incredibly badly drafted. It says that you can't be discriminated against. But then also says employers retain their rights, one of which is to discriminate. It is not clear what the courts would do with that. But the logical thing would be to harmonize them by saying employers can't discriminate for past use but can for use that affects your employment.

I seriously doubt even California courts would start saying bus drivers and air traffic controllers can come to work stoned. You are beating a strawman FLS.

Note that the "medicinal" use of alcohol — "self-medicating" — is considered especially bad.

Um, it is?

I have on my desk a bottle of hand sanitizer. The active ingredient is ethanol. At home, in my medicine cabinet, I have a bottle of NyQuil, one of the major ingredients of which is ethanol. My mouthwash also contains ethanol. Alcohol -- even the drinkable kind -- has all sorts of normal medical uses that people don't think twice about.

The old "medicinal use" trope dates back to when drinking was illegal and/or heavily frowned upon; people used it "medicinally" in order to get high. They did the same thing with opiates and cocaine. Some people do it today with pot.

Revenant wrote:I have on my desk a bottle of hand sanitizer. The active ingredient is ethanol. At home, in my medicine cabinet, I have a bottle of NyQuil, one of the major ingredients of which is ethanol. My mouthwash also contains ethanol. Alcohol -- even the drinkable kind -- has all sorts of normal medical uses that people don't think twice about.

THose items contain alcohol, as do many cakes, but noone goes to a doctor and asks for a bottle of scotch because it makes them calm. As mentioned earlier, we have Marinol which takes the THC from pot and gives it to you in a drug form, which is different than giving you a joint or pot brownies or a bag of weed.

John wrote:That is supremely dopey. Putting opiates into your body is really harmful. But you better hope your doctor is willing to proscribe them to you the next time you have surgery. Chemotherapy is flat out poison. But again you better hope your doctor proscribes such stuff if you ever have cancer.

Except there are other drugs that give you the same calm feeling as pot that don't require you to smoke it. Marinol is the THC content from pot, and it doesn't require you to smoke it. So if a doctor felt that pot was needed for some medical purpose why not prescribe that instead of giving patients a dime bag? And yes opiates are dangerous but also necessary. They give you them though because the need outweighs the harm. They could also do what they do in the old western movies when the hero gets shot, give him a bottle of jack daniels and let him get ripped then take the bullet out, or conk him over the head with a rock and knock him unconsicious then take the bullet out.

John said, "California is not a particularly socially liberal state anymore. It is an authoritarian liberal state."

Can you please say more about this? My interested is piqued.

I know a lot of people who will propound "Republican" fiscal ideas about the necessity of controlling government spending, low taxes and regulation, etc., but hate Republicans as human beings for their conservative social positions and so will not vote for any under any circumstances even though they would like to see those particular "Republican" ideas advance.

I see it as a species of self-indulgence and wonder if I should see it as something more. Thus I'm curious about the authoritarian angle. Are you talking about something like cumpulsory multiculturalism?

Apropos of nothing in particular, note that the Mayo Clinic defines moderate drinking for healthy men 65 and younger, which may actually yield health benefits (current research is inconclusive), as "a maximum of four drinks per occasion, or 14 drinks a week".

That's a lot of moderate drinking! I think of myself as slightly alcoholic and I'm nowhere near that.

http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/alcohol/SC00024

Also, distilled spirits were included in the USP for a long time before the temperance movement pushed them out. Brandy may have even been put back in at some point after the temperance movement, but I am not able to hunt that factoid down right now.

Separately, on the subject of moderate marijuana use (why focus on the extremes), while I have never smoked...anything, ever*, many of my friends do, and I feel like they are all doing much better in life than I am. Just adding more anecdotes to the mix.

*Full disclosure: I have orally ingested something a few times over the years and by "a few" I mean less than 6.

chuckb wrote:I know a lot of people who will propound "Republican" fiscal ideas about the necessity of controlling government spending, low taxes and regulation, etc., but hate Republicans as human beings for their conservative social positions and so will not vote for any under any circumstances even though they would like to see those particular "Republican" ideas advance.

Chuck, I don't understand why the Bay Area can't come up with more candidates to your liking. What is to stop a social liberal from having real fiscal conservative tendencies at the local level? I'm serious. Seems like a no-brainer solution.

Those items contain alcohol, as do many cakes, but noone goes to a doctor and asks for a bottle of scotch because it makes them calm.

Alcohol is available over the counter. Why would you ask your doctor for it?

As mentioned earlier, we have Marinol which takes the THC from pot and gives it to you in a drug form, which is different than giving you a joint or pot brownies or a bag of weed.

As mentioned earlier, Marinol has enormous disadvantages as medicine. There is a long onset time, dose control is basically impossible, nauseous patients can't keep it down, and -- oh yeah -- you can't actually get it.

Inhalers/atomizers show promise. Unfortunately the federal government fights tooth and nail to prevent any research from being done.

I must say that I would have liked to see an FBI agent in a suit wander into a pot-selling store in California, yawn, and do the, "Hello, Sam." "Hello, Fred," thing, then arrest everyone inside and cart off everything.

"I don't understand why the Bay Area can't come up with more candidates to your liking."

I have no clue. You're asking the wrong person.

There are some good people (not so much in San Francisco, but regionally), and there have been more, but they do not advance beyond the local level.

I don't know why the world is the way it is.

Ask Randy! :)

I suspect the better candidates don't advance for the same reasons that Republicans continue to put forth defective candidates. The leadership on the nominating committees, with sway over the activists, on both sides, want it that way. These people should not be in charge.

Why Nancy Pelosi over Susan Hammer (former mayor of San Jose, *as an example*), I don't know. San Francisco grabs all the attention, but San Jose is a bigger city, and more well run. I adore San Francisco, but it should not be exporting leadership to the state or nation. We are a small, quirky town that should only be taken in small doses.

As for the Republicans--if they believed in their message, why Carly Fiorina over Chuck DeVore? Or, you know, why not Tom Campbell if actually winning mattered?

And for me, I don't want social liberals, per se. Au contraire. I'm all about moderation. I do think we're in a period of flux about where that spectrum lies but that's a different subject.

Revenant wrote:Alcohol is available over the counter. Why would you ask your doctor for it?

Because it makes you feel calm? Maybe you're underage and can't buy it in the store? It's an example used to suggest that it's not really medication and it's a disingenous argument to suggest that alcohol would be used as a medicine because it had a calming effect on on people, not that alcohol cvouldn't be found in other medications. And it also would assume that someone was making the argument about alcohol as medicine when discussing legalizing alcohol. It's a comparison.

bagoh20 wrote:Is buying that blood diamond in fact a victimless crime? It's just a stone after all."

As far as I know, you can't grow your own diamonds in your back yard. Making home growing of pot legal defeats most of your anti- Prop 19 points. Oh, and "Blow" was just a movie.

Blow was a movie, but George Jung and Pablo Escobar are real people. You can read plenty of books or see documentaries on Pablo's exploits. Lets just say he was pretty vicious. So is it true that George Jung saw someone executed when he met pablo? Perhaps. But is it possible that he had no idea what Pablo was about when he went into business with him? Impossible.And Prop 19 hasn't been made into law yet. And something tells me the vast majority of people who smoke pot arent' growing it in their backyard. So, what about all the victims of the cartels who were killed while people bought pot or coke (or whatever) from the cartels. If you didn't grow your coke in your backyard, or your pot, then you bought it illegally, very possibly by a murderous cartel. And users, knowing this could care less, apparently. None of that was even addressing the specifics of Prop 19, only the selfishness of users. Do you have a personal problem with blood diamonds? How is it different than buying drugs from a cartel?

As far as Prop 19 goes, once I found out that it allows individuals to grow pot legally in their backyard I dismissed it as a really stupid idea. It would not remove cartels from the mix because individual members of a cartel could simply grow the cartels pot on thier individual plot.And since their neighbors were competition and they could see the people growing the pot, or know who their customers were buying pot from it would be easy for them to let the low level drug dealers grow the pot then simply take over the plots for themselves and make the dealer grow for the cartel.And because a lot of this pot would be sold to states where pots was still illegal, none of that money would be declared for taxes, so California wouldn't get a lot of the tax revenue. Not to mention it would increase robberies, since pot is a cash crop and people down the block would have thousands of dollars worth of product within arms reach. It would simply make it easier for cartels to sell their pot around the country and increase crime.

Further, because each grower could only have a 5x5 plot it still wouldn't cut a dent in a cartel shipping in pot from elsewhere. The amount of pot sold by individuals would be so minimal,in comparison to the volume controlled by cartels that it wouldn't make a dent (unless of course people grow more than 5x5 plots, in which case the police will have to get involved to make sure you aren't growing a 6x5 plot). What is more than likely to happen is that drug dealers who now are on a corner would instead sell from their house. And you'd still have gangs figthing over drug turf, and also over their drug dens where they grow product.And finally, even though a lot of people COULD grow their own pot, most people don't have the time or the interest when they could simply buy it from someone else and not have to do the work. Which again means that most drugs would be sold by cartels.

Where's the part where you need to visit a doctor? If you went to your doctor and said "doctor, I have a glass of wine with dinner because it helps me relax" he'll give it the thumbs-up; would that make you feel better?

It's an example used to suggest that it's not really medication

You can quibble over terminology if you want. Alcohol is a drug, and moderate consumption of it is (for most people) healthier than abstinence. You can say "that's not medication" if you want. Fine; it isn't medication, it's just a drug that's good for you when used properly.

Where's the part where you need to visit a doctor? If you went to your doctor and said "doctor, I have a glass of wine with dinner because it helps me relax" he'll give it the thumbs-up; would that make you feel better?

That's different than a doctor giving you a bottle of scotch as medicine. Should doctors give booze and say it's therepeutic? But anyway, it was ann who made the comparison, and it was in the context of the disingenuous of having doctors give pot as "medicine" and it woudl be the same if doctors gave booze as "medicine". obviously that's in the context of trying to make something legal through a back door and justifying it by saying it was medicine. So that suggests that this would be a similar justification when booze was not legal (but people made the argument that booze should be legal because it had medicinal benefits, or some such).

John;That is supremely dopey. Putting opiates into your body is really harmful. But you better hope your doctor is willing to proscribe them to you the next time you have surgery. Chemotherapy is flat out poison. But again you better hope your doctor proscribes such stuff if you ever have cancer.

If you read my post you would see i objected to the drug delivery system. I was not discussing the therapeutic benefits of the active ingredient (THC). I would likewise not want to "legalize" the "medical" prescription of used, unsterilized needles, also a dangerous delivery system.

And how is pot more evil that alcohol? Have you ever had to deal with an alcoholic? Seen the kind of pain that alcohol abuse causes? It is nasty and horrible. And just as bad or worse than any horror story you can dream up about pot. Should we ban that evil to? If not, why not?

You understand that logic takes us also in the opposite direction (i.e. banning cheeseburgers and automobiles)

I tried to watch that snippet of Sawyer's interview of Pelosi on Drudge right now but I couldn't finish it. The woman needs to return to her cocoon. Surely it was money that propelled to that spot for that brief time. It wasn't good works nor prayer.

None of this addresses why we allow swat teams to act like Gestapo with American citizens over possession of a plant they can grow on their widow sill. These raids are happening every day, resulting in deaths of innocents and obliteration of anything resembling an American sense of liberty and human rights. None of the negative effects of legal weed require us to accept this atrocity.

When we choose something that's not a serious threat and treat it like it is one, we become fascists. These raids embarrass and enrage me more than almost anything else we do as a nation. If we're talking about a meth lab, that's one thing, but just because we call two things drugs does not make them the same thing. It's a word, a choice, and we should know better than to treat our own people and constitution like this. I don't care about the drug, I care about rights.

The legalization movement was opposed by virtually the entire news media and the entire political establishment -- every major politician, both parties, all state newspapers, etc. It is heartening to think that at least 44% of my fellow Californians can think for themselves in the face of that kind of opposition.

That's different than a doctor giving you a bottle of scotch as medicine.

Just like having a doctor tell you to eat a well-balanced meal isn't the same as him actually cooking one for you in his office, yes.

I'm not even sure what point you think you're making. Actual doctors with actual medical degrees prescribe marijuana as medicine. If you want to argue that they'd never prescribe alcohol, well... even if you're right, that just tells me that doctors think alcohol is more dangerous than marijuana. Which would make a lot of sense, since it is. :)

Agreed, they didn't seem like they knew who Boxer was or much of anything else. They did know that they and their friends who got high were not a serious threat to anybody, and that arresting them for it was wrong. Even a stoner can get that right.

I don't know why this gets me so much, except that I've known hundreds of pot heads and was one myself as a kid. It seems like people who did the same turned out exactly normal in the long run and hurt no one in the process. When I was in high school in the seventies, most kids were either jocks, heads or neither. Generally the jocks were the violent ones, the heads the peaceful ones, and neithers were the strange ones. The pot heads seemed to grow into the most stable adults, usually with a politically libertarian bent, which I prefer. Certainly not a danger or drag on society, in my experience. I just don't see what we are protecting ourselves from at such a high price.

Revenant wrote:I'm not even sure what point you think you're making. Actual doctors with actual medical degrees prescribe marijuana as medicine. If you want to argue that they'd never prescribe alcohol, well... even if you're right, that just tells me that doctors think alcohol is more dangerous than marijuana. Which would make a lot of sense, since it is. :)

Again, it was a comparison made by Ann. And again the issue was that those who argue that they need medication, and that's why they are arguing for marijuana is dubious at best. And it would be akin to a doctor giving you scotch as medicine. Ann made the additional point that those who self medicate on alcohol are in fact alcoholics so it strikes her as disingenous to suggest that people "need" marijuana as opposed to arguing it on personal freedom grounds.There are plenty of other pain medications from marinol to others totally unrelated to pot that can give patients relief that dont' require them to use elements from pot. There are also no real studies that show that pot has any medicinal benefitAs to actual doctors prescribing pot as medication, dthere are some "doctors" who are pretty unscrupulous. Michael Jackson's "doctor" or Anna Nicole Smith's "doctor" fed them plenty of medication and kept them up to date on their habits, but I wouldn't exactly call them scrupulous.In fact many "doctors" have dispensing marijuana as their primary practice. In chicago they get paid about 70 bucks a pop and have 5 minute examinations where the person in pain is told he needs marijuana.And of course it just so happens that the majority of these people in Colorado are young 20 year olds who are in so much pain they need to be medicated with of course marijuana. THey must all be construction workers and/or on the football team ,to be so injured. And of course people even joke about how they need to get medicated as they smoke their joints. The idea that it is legitimate medicine is a joke.

I don't think your premise about medicinal use of alcohol is always correct, or if it is, this is a recent development. In old novels and movies whiskey to steady the nerves after receiving a shock is treated as routine.

Usually any drug that comes to market has to pass rigorous testing by the Food And Drug Administration, yet pot doesn't get tested at all. In california, from what I hear, doctors don't even write prescriptions for pot, rather they write reccomendations for their patients. Considering doctors get their prescription pads from the DEA not too many doctors would risk giving out prescriptions for illegal drugs. And its not just cancer patients, but people who have a headache and need pot. Of course those advocating for the legalization of pot for medicinal purposes are very quiet about getting their drug tested by the FDA to determine it's merits as a wonder drug. So instead, bogus doctors make their living giving out recommendations to people, many of them who could be given other drugs that are totally legal,and many who have no ailments to speak of for pot. Shouldn't pot face the same rigorous testing as anything put out by a drug company before it's marketed as a medical drug? Or should those who LEGITMATELY make drugs say if pot doesn't need FDA testing why should our latest drugs? It would save drug companies billions.

Prop 19 failed because it was garbage legislation. Every municipality in the state would end up having it's own regulations against that law. Neighboring districts could have differing laws. The legal confusion would cause chaos. Not to mention that the feds would go after it and challenge it and most likely it would be struck down.

former law student said...

The argument that Prop 19 would allow school bus drivers to toke up to the moment they turned the key in the ignition was telling. Only after they had one accident while stoned could an employer forbid them to.

The problem with that is we know what the legal BAC of an individual to be, but no one has asked what unit of measure legally, constitutes being to high from pot? Do you know?

even if you're right, that just tells me that doctors think alcohol is more dangerous than marijuana. Which would make a lot of sense, since it is. :)

Even in the face of long term studies that suggest, if not show outright, that certain quantities of moderate consumption is actually beneficial, which were conducted by medical professionals going as far back as the early 1900's? I think you presume to much.

In chicago they get paid about 70 bucks a pop and have 5 minute examinations where the person in pain is told he needs marijuana.And of course it just so happens that the majority of these people in Colorado are young 20 year olds who are in so much pain they need to be medicated with of course marijuana. THey must all be construction workers and/or on the football team ,to be so injured. And of course people even joke about how they need to get medicated as they smoke their joints. The idea that it is legitimate medicine is a joke.

Of course medical pot is a joke. Considering that its majority of users are between 18 and 40, mostly male, and the biggest medical diagnosis as a justification for prescribing pot is stress. Yeah, that's a lot of pain alright. I wish the pot heads would just be honest about it. If they just came out and said, "Look we would like to smoke weed for pleasure, we won't bother you out in public, we will suffer the same consequences that alcohol users suffer if we are found to be intoxicated just like them, but we just want to smoke weed, okay? Can we make it legal so we don't have to come up with these bullshit legal hoops?" and I almost bet you that would go over much better with the electorate than these other legal arguments for it.

bagoh20 wrote:None of this addresses why we allow swat teams to act like Gestapo with American citizens over possession of a plant they can grow on their widow sill. These raids are happening every day, resulting in deaths of innocents and obliteration of anything resembling an American sense of liberty and human rights. None of the negative effects of legal weed require us to accept this atrocity.

leaving aside pot for a second, would you have a problem with cops conducting raids to deal with heroin or meth? or if there were a gun running operation or there was a car theft ring? If the cops raid a place it's going to always look the same. They break the door down with guns at the ready. Sometimes they get into shootouts. But, wouldn't that be true whenever cops had to conduct a raid? In other words, are you against cops using that force specifically for pot, or against raids in general. Becausue you're going to have to legalize a lot of things that shouldn't be legal if you want to do away with raids entirely.

Yes, just like I'd be against it for SUSPICION of soodomy between adults, or having contraband cigarettes or having some Vicodin that you got from a friend or any number of nonviolent, nonthreatening offenses that just happen to be illegal in some places.

I don't see how assaulting and possibly killing someone for suspicion of having pot is a better outcome than letting them have it. What kind of trade off is that? What's the ends versus the means - cost/benefit. It's like The Man is high on something, and tweekin' bad.

Rev: my only point was that even in the face of total prohibition, citizens could "make drugs" for home use. Why treat marijuana differently? 200 gallons of wine has to equate to a lot of homegrown pot.

And again the issue was that those who argue that they need medication, and that's why they are arguing for marijuana is dubious at best.

I don't need to argue that marijuana is useful as medicine. The scientific consensus in this state is that it does, the law here says that it does, and -- despite government threats -- it isn't hard to find doctors who agree it does either. So people who passionately insist it has no legitimate use of medicine merit the same amused smile with which I responded to Tom Cruise's little "antidepressants don't work" rant.

Neighboring districts could have differing laws. The legal confusion would cause chaos.

Oh, please.

I grew up in the south, a place where it is common to have completely different laws for alcohol sale and consumption from county to county and city to city. Hell, up until yesterday Dallas apparently had radically different laws for alcohol in different parts of the same CITY.

Was this a gigantic pain in the ass to people who just wanted to buy beer and drink it in peace? Hell yes. Did it cause chaos and confusion? It did not. Courts have been dealing with laws that differ from jurisdiction to jurisdiction for as long as there have BEEN laws.

Rev: my only point was that even in the face of total prohibition, citizens could "make drugs" for home use. Why treat marijuana differently? 200 gallons of wine has to equate to a lot of homegrown pot.

Marijuana is treated differently because letting people grow and consume their own marijuana is virtually indistinguishable from complete legalization. Most users would grow their own if they could do so without fear of arrest and prosecution.

One plant produces around 80 grams, give or take. That's 160 joints, each of which will get you high (if that's what you want) for a few hours. Used sparingly as medicine -- many medical users try to avoid the high, which is one of the many reasons Marinol sucks -- a joint can last a day or more.

Ever grown anything in a garden? Tomatoes, carrots, whatever? If that same level of effort and cost could produce all the beer or wine you could dream of drinking, would you ever actually BUY beer or wine again? Not unless you really hated gardening. :)

I don't see how assaulting and possibly killing someone for suspicion of having pot is a better outcome than letting them have it. What kind of trade off is that?

A good rule of thumb is to never say "X should be illegal" unless you're willing to say "I'm ok with killing people for X". It will always come to that, even if only in the fringe cases. Use of force is serious business.

Revenant wrote:A good rule of thumb is to never say "X should be illegal" unless you're willing to say "I'm ok with killing people for X". It will always come to that, even if only in the fringe cases. Use of force is serious business.

What if cops try to arrest a burglar and he pulls a gun and they kill him? Under your logic we should make burglary legal because cops might have to kill someone who commits burglary. Isn't that true for all crimes? Cops might have to kill you in the process of arresting you for whatever crime be it murder or something more mundane. Should we outlaw crime fighting?

Revenant wrote:Marijuana is treated differently because letting people grow and consume their own marijuana is virtually indistinguishable from complete legalization. Most users would grow their own if they could do so without fear of arrest and prosecution.

Except what if they grow some and then sell it, or say sell it across state lines where it might be illegal. Then it's not specifically for home use anymore. Can or should cops bust sellers then? (ie use the force of law to force certain behaviors).And what if Prop 19 passed and it stated you could only have a 5x5 plot of land for pot, and somebody decided to have a 10x10 plot of land. Should the cops get involved then? If not, what's the point of saying you should have a 5x5 plot of land?

bago20 wrote:Yes, just like I'd be against it for SUSPICION of soodomy between adults, or having contraband cigarettes or having some Vicodin that you got from a friend or any number of nonviolent, nonthreatening offenses that just happen to be illegal in some places.

But you would acknowledge that all the objections you have for raids on peoples homes (ie the terror of the family, the shooting of the dog etc) would still be in place if the cops still raided your house for meth/heroin/burglary/murder. Are you ok with that disruption of a household and potential loss of freedom for those crimes? For the crimes you say cops should be able to bust into your house and arrest you for, are you for state intrusion over personal freedom? Because either you're ok with it or you're not, but then the issue is you don't think cops should conduct raids, or don't think there should be enforecable crimes (ie the household is predominant over everything, you could have a meth lab beat your kids slay your dog build a nuclear weapon have a prostitution ring all operating out of your house and so long as it's done in your house the state can't interfere)